The Public Lands & Buildings Committee will meet on Monday, November 15, 2010 immediately following the Special Meeting of Council to discuss ordering equipment for the Spray Ground and to review the layout and the proposed features.

The meeting was called to review the final proposed layout of the Splash Park and let the City Engineer, Jeff Filarski, present the design from Rain Drop.

The Committee Chair began by stating the purpose of the meeting and turned it over to the City Engineer to present the concept drawings.

Mr. Filarski began by briefly discussing the US Communities Government Purchasing Alliance. The US Communities Alliance is purchasing cooperative that allows governmental agencies to get the best overall supplier government pricing. The City Engineer explained that we were planning on using US Communities to purchase the equipment for the Splash Park, and explained that after doing some research we would be eligible to participate in the program. He also told the committee that we still planned to go out to bid for the equipment installation with the exception of the one large feature which would be installed by Rain Drop due to some specialized installation concerns.

The City Engineer presented 3 story boards to the committee detailing the layout of the features and the overall Splash Park. There are four proposed areas to be color coded by age group. The areas will include attractions for 2 - 4 year olds, 4 - 8 year olds, a tween area and the area with the large play structure. The attractions discussed included some ground effects, creature features, water cannons, misting benches, a dumping Palm Tree, a Trio of different above ground features, water slides and the main attraction that will include a large dump bucket, slides and various other water features. The City Engineer also presented an animated "flyover" to show what the Splash park would look like operating in 3D.

Both the City Engineer and the Service Director explained that we would be recalculating the water to operate the features and that we would be using UV light to keep the water clean.

Councilman Fisher asked about the ability to remove and reinstall the attractions. The City Engineer explained that the installation of the equipment would use an Omni Pod supplied by Rain Drop and that the omni pods were embedded into the ground and the attractions were easily bolted down. The Omni pod concept also allows for additional attractions to be added in the future or older or less popular attractions could be swapped out. There have also been some discussions with Rain Drop doing some pilot testing of new features using the Brainard Splash Park.

The Law Director provided some additional details on the US Communities Purchasing Alliance and reiterated that the City would be eligible to participate in the program.

Councilman Ward asked if the committee needed to make any motions or take any action at this meeting. The Committee Chair explained that no action was required this evening and that the final costs for the plans presented by the City Engineer would be on Board of Control at the December 6th meeting.

The meeting was called to review the Pool Operations for the 2010 Pool season. Committee Chair, Councilman Frey began the meeting with a review of the Pool Pass sales and attendance figures for 2010 as compiled by the Director of Finance.

The items reviewed included, all pass sales, reciprocity passes, daily admissions and overall Pool revenue. While most of the figures that were reviewed remained flat in comparison with the 2009 Pool season, one item of particular interest was the increase in the daily admissions for both residents and non residents. It was felt that most of this increase came from the hotter weather and the deletion of the Camp pass, requiring day Camps to pay the daily admission at the gate.

The committee also reviewed the Pool attendance and revenue trends dating back to 2003, noting that the trend showed attendance declining in 2006 to 2009 pool seasons and returning to what appears to be a "normalized" level in 2010. The committee also reviewed the attendance figures on a daily and hourly basis for the 2010 season alone. A review of the revenue vs. expenditures showed that revenues have remained relatively flat for the past six years with only minor increases or decreases in a given pool season, however, expenditures were shown to be trending downward as the city has sought ways to control expenses, through the closing of Brainard Pool and other various cost containment measures.

After the overall operational review, the committee discussed various complaints that have been heard throughout the season. Those complaints can be categorized into, overcrowding, lack of pool etiquette, and issues with the day camps. The Mayor stated that a majority of the complaints that he hears could be resolved by eliminating the Camps, non resident admission and reciprocity with South Euclid. The committee discussed some of the issues with the day camps including the number of Counselors to Camper ratio and the number of incidents. It was brought to the committee's attention that the Kiddie Co is only sending 1 counselor for every 16 kids which lead to a discussion on whether there was any type of minimum ratio that should be imposed.

The Finance Director provided some policy statistics from 9 neighboring pools, stating that 2 of the 9 pools allow all camps to use the facilities and 7 allow only camps from that city. Two pools, Beachwood and Wickliffe do not allow non residents and 7 of the other pools did sell a non resident pass. None of the other pools have any type of reciprocity agreement with another community.

The Committee reviewed the incident statistics for the season to see if there was any trend with a particular group (i.e. residents, non-residents, day camps) or apparatus at the pool and found that the incident rate was spread across all groups and all parts of the pool.

In reference to some complaints he has heard, Councilman Gambatese asked the Pool Director about opening up the baby pool during adult swim. The Pool director stated that it would be hard to keep kids in one particular area of the pool and that that time was also used for some private lessons. The Pool Director also stated that most adults come for some quiet time to cool off and swim laps and would not want kids making noise.

Based on the discussions at this meeting, the committee asked for recommendations to minimize the number of complaints and work to increase the efficiency of pool operations going forward. Those recommendations to be discussed at a future meeting included adopting a policy on the Camper/Counselor ratio, revisiting the reciprocity agreement and looking at how we handle non-resident admissions.

Councilman Ward made a motion to adjourn the meeting with Councilman Marko seconding the motion.

The meeting was called to review the HVAC controls used at the Lyndhurst Community Center and to discuss the potential upgrades to the Controls.

The meeting started with a brief overview from John Gregor on the status of the current controls and the issues with those controls. John stated that the Control System is getting harder to maintain and it is difficult to obtain replacement parts. The system has recently experienced some uptime issues but John was able to find some replacement parts to keep it operational.

Paul from PB-Tech explained the Controls for an updated system that was previously part of the appropriations for 2010. He also explained some possible additional components that would allow for the new system to run more efficiently and allow for remote monitoring. These additional controls were not part of the original base unit.

The Committee and other members of Council asked several questions in regards to operation and expense of the new controls. Councilman Fisher expressed to concern over the Control system being obsolete in the 10+ years that the Community Center has been operational.

After all the questions had been answered, Councilman Ward made a motion that we move forward with the Base System and look into adding the additional components for the complete control system toward the end of the year. Councilman Marko seconded that Motion.

Councilman Ward made a motion to adjourn the meeting with Councilman Marko seconding the motion.

The meeting was called to review the additional details that had been investigated by the Service Director and the City Engineer as well as to update residents on what direction that City Council was investigating relative to the water amenity at Brainard Park. Invitations were sent out via email to residents that had expressed previous interest/concern over the closing of Brainard Pool but none of those residents were in attendance.

The meeting opened with a review by the Committee Chair, Councilman Frey, on the previous meetings held relative to the feasibility of moving forward with a Spray Park at the Brainard Park site. Finance Director Mary Kovalchik provided a Power Point presentation as an overview of what a Spray Park is, the terminology, and the reasons why municipalities look to supplement their water amenities with this type of lower cost solution.

City Engineer Jeff Filarski reviewed the concept of installing a Spray Ground from the engineering point of view, including reuse of existing infrastructure. Jeff also reviewed the various features that could be offered and a possible timeline for the construction and opening of the Spray ground.

The Committee took a few questions and comments from 3 different residents in attendance.

The Committee briefly discussed next steps noting that monies had already been appropriated during the budget process for the construction of the Spray ground if Council decided to move forward this year.

A motion was made to allow the City Engineer to move forward with the development of plans for a Spray ground at Brainard Park to replace the existing Pool. The Motion carried unanimously.

The meeting was called to discuss Pool Admission Fees for the 2010 Pool season. Committee Chairman, Councilman Frey provided a brief review of the past two years of Pool Fees and highlighted the Fee structure put in place last year with Ordinance 2009-17. Councilman Frey recommended to the Committee that all Fees remain unchanged from last years and noted that the Finance Director had some suggestions for minor changes.

The committee did discuss the Fee for the Swim Team and Pool Director Julie David suggested the fee should go up to be more in line with the combined three sessions of the Learn to Swim program. The recommendation was made to increase the fee from $30.00 to $50 or $60. The committee discussed this and settled on an increase to $45.00.

Finance Director Mary Kovalchik mentioned that Pool Passes would be re-issued this year with the first names removed for safety reasons. She stated that all the pictures from last year where saved so passes could be re-issued without the need for the entire family to return to City Hall for new pictures.

The committee then discussed changing the name of the "Babysitter" Pass to something else because some people complained about the Babysitter title. The committee kicked around a few options and decided to leave the name the same.

At the recommendation of the Finance Director the committee decided to remove the School District language and just leave it as non-resident. This changed was to clean up the language in the Ordinance and had no affect on the Fee Structure.

The Committee also decided to remove the $2 daily reciprocity admission fee for South Euclid residents and made all daily admissions $5. The above mentioned changes where put to a vote of the committee and past unanimously.